Telefonica/Vivo group is the biggest in number of accesses and revenue

Telefonica/Vivo is the biggest group in Brazil in quantity if accesses, due to Vivo's leadership on the cellular market.

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Oi/BrT is in the second position counting 21.8 million fixed telephones and 3.9 million broadband.

The group, owned by the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, which includes Embratel, Claro and Net, is the third with 51.2 million accesses, 3.3 million of them are Pay TV.

Considering the regions, Oi leads in absolute in Region I heading in fixed, broadband and cellular accesses. The same happens with Telefonica/Vivo group in São Paulo (Region III). In Region II, Oi/BrT leads in fixed and broadband accesses, while Vivo is the leader in cellular market share.

Telecommunication is a business with intensive capital where scale is crucial to reduce costs and improve operators profitability.

Telefonica/Vivo leadership in market share means also leadership in gross revenue, with small margin in relation to Oi/BrT though.

The same was repeated for the EBITDA margin.

In a globalized world, scale is important not only in the Brazilian market but also in the world. It explains Oi's efforts to amplify its operations beyond the Brazilian borders. In a global level its structure is yet much smaller than the other groups' that operate in the Brazilian market.

Global Net Revenue

In this expansion is necessary prudence, however, with the company's debt in order to avoid problems like the ones faced by Telecom Italia, which had to sell most of its international assets to overcome the high value of its debts.

Global Net Debt

You could ask:

Will Telefonica keep the leadership in accesses and gross revenue in 2009?

How can the financial crisis affect this climate?

Will Oi expand its operations abroad in 2009?

Will Telefonica/Vivo group consolidate its Fixed, Mobile and TV operations? What about Carlos Slim's group?